Dep. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, USA

Microfluidics and Biological Instrument Design as a Computing Discipline: An Overview

Zusammenfassung

The emerging field of microfluidics and Lab-on-a-Chip technology shares many principle similarities with the
early days of the semiconductor industry; one key difference is that even after 20 years of progress, there are
many competing microfluidic technologies, whereas, the integrated silicon transistor has dominated the
semiconductor industry for the past 50 years. Regardless of which microfluidic technologies remain prevalent,
there is an unquestioned need for software automation, ranging from microfluidic design tools to domainspecific
programming languages and compilers.
- This talk will review several recent and ongoing efforts to adapt best practices from the
semiconductor and software industry to microfluidics:
- A domain-specific programming language and compiler for droplet-based electrowetting microfluidic
chips;
- Computer-aided design tools targeting passive continuous flow-based microfluidic devices;
- Computer-aided design tools targeting active continuous flow-based microfluidic devices based on
integrated microvalves;
- Computer-aided design tools targeting paper microfluidic devices based on passive-flow substrates;
and
- Multidisciplinary Evolutionary Components (MECs), which can be rapidly snapped together to
assemble milli-fluidic scale biological instruments.

Vortragender

Philip Brisk received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA in 2006. From 2006-2009, he worked as a
postdoc at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2009, he started his current position at the University of
California, Riverside ? approx. 100 km east of Los Angeles ? where he was promoted to Associate
Professor with Tenure in 2015. His research interests include Computer Architecture, VLSI/CAD, FPGAs and
Reconfigurable Computing, and today?s topic: Programmable Microfluidics